Pirate Party Bags Seats on European Parliament

Founded in 2006, the group is rallying a reformation of copyright and patent law. Naturally, with a name like the Pirate Party, they weren’t taken all that seriously. However, Friday’s voting saw the Pirate Party come fifth, garnering 7.1 percent of the Swedish vote. The first four positions went to the Social Democrats, the Greens, the Liberals and the Moderate Party. Given that Sweden has a total of twenty seats in the European Parliament, the Pirate Party’s 7.1 percent of votes translates to two seats.

PCWorld reports that nearly one quarter of voters under the age of 21 voted for the Pirate Party and according to TorrentFreak, the turnout at the elections was 43 percent, meaning 200,000 Swedes have voted for the Pirate Party.

TF goes on to highlight the huge increase in support of the party since the national elections in 2006, which only saw the Pirates win 34,918 votes. This surge in support has been put down to the very public Pirate Bay trial which took place in Sweden and saw four men sentenced to a year each in prison along with an order to pay substantial damages to music, movie and game companies.